alonovo.com (beta 2.0)

Nice life lesson book... But view discretion advised. 2010-05-05

Reviewer: L. Hester

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver is enlightening and enriching. It tells two stories that lead in to one, Homero and Cosima. Kingsolver conveys to her audience about love and adventure. Her sensory imagery paints the perfect picture in the reader's head. When she describes the place where Codi is staying she says, "I heard the goat moving around outside, munching loudly and bumping against the wall. I opened cupboards. Everything was spotless. The east window in the living room looked straight out onto the granite wall of the canyon a few yards away, a startling lack of view. Emelina's place was the last and highest on her street, backed up against the canyon. The floorboards of her front porch were on a level with her neighbor's roof." - And that's just the beginning of her sensory imagery.
This book is not a good choice for anyone younger than a mature teenager for it has many scenes that are not suitable for them. In a couple scenes the characters may harm an animal and Kingsolver, while a very intellectual writer, is especially descriptive in these particular scenes. Also the book contains an intimate scene that is also incredibly descriptive. But don't get me wrong, this book does contain many life lessons a girl will experience growing up from a teenager to a young adult.

Very talented writer 2010-05-05

Reviewer: D. Gaskin

This is my first experience reading this author. I would not have thought of buying one of her books if I had not seen the recommendation of someone else on Amazon. She writes so well and interesting that I had to continue reading Pigs in Heaven and one more I forget the name, now. I will continue reading her books and highly recommend others do the same.

emotional and thought-prevoking 2010-04-28

Reviewer: real-life momma

This book depicts very complex characters. The revelations about the past as the story moves along are truly surprising and continually make you re-evaluate what you think of those characters and their relationships. The southwest setting is portrayed beautifully and even meaningfully. Less humor than _The Bean Trees_, but quite compelling. I wish I could give it 4 1/2 stars.

Angieville: ANIMAL DREAMS 2010-02-26

Reviewer: Angela Thompson

I'm a sucker for reading other people's favorite books of all time. When someone tells me a certain book is one of the books of their life, I get this pressing urge to run out and secure a copy. It generally doesn't matter what genre or style of book it is. I think this is mostly because I know what it means to care so much about a book you have to have it nearby at all times. Maybe you own more than one copy so that if you lend one out you've still got a spare...just in case. Maybe you can't remember a time when you hadn't read and loved that book, those characters. I know what that feels like. And because I have such tender feelings for certain books, I want to have read the books others feel the same way about. It's almost always a rewarding experience. One of the most memorable of these times happened several years ago when a good friend of mine on Readerville was talking about what a superb novel Barbara Kingsolver's ANIMAL DREAMS was. I had read one Kingsolver book at that point--The Bean Trees: A Novel--and, while I appreciated parts of it, my overall reaction was pretty lackluster. So it wasn't with a lot of excitement that I approached Kingsolver's second novel.

Codi Noline thought she'd left Grace, Arizona once and for all when she and her little sister Hallie escaped and went away to college. It's been ten years since then and Codi and Hallie have traveled farther than she ever expected. Even after medical school and several stints as a world traveler, she's never found a place she could call home And yet, when the call comes in that her father has Alzheimer's and can't live alone anymore and Codi returns home to look after him, she finds to her chagrin that she hasn't moved that far beyond her childhood after all. Back in Grace, she stays in her old friend Emelina's guest house and takes a job teaching biology at the local high school. With her platinum blonde hair and her checkered history with this town, she stands out like a sore thumb and she's all but sure it was a colossal mistake coming home this way. But as she exchanges letters with Hallie, deals with her deteriorating father, and strikes up a tentative friendship with Loyd Peregrina--an Apache railroad brakeman she once knew--Codi's perspective is challenged on so many levels and the lines between memory and truth and past and present are blurred so far it's all she can do to hang on to the here and now.

Here are the opening lines from Codi's perspective:

"I am the sister who didn't go to war. I can only tell you my side of the story. Hallie is the one who went south, with her pickup truck and her crop-disease books and her heart dead set on a new world.

Who knows why people do what they do? I stood on a battleground once too, but it was forty years after the fighting was all over: northern France, in 1982, in a field where the farmers' plow blades kept turning up the skeletons of cows. They were the first casualties of the German occupation. In the sudden quiet after the evacuation the cows had died by the thousands in those pastures, slowly, lowing with pain from unmilked udders. But now the farmers who grew sugar beets in those fields were blessed, they said, by the bones. The soil was rich in calcium."

I knew right away I liked Codi. I felt sorry for her and I wanted to know her better. By the end, I liked her even more, as though I understood her because I had followed her home. Kingsolver's storytelling is breathlessly evocative. I constantly found myself gasping at the way she wields the written word to move her readers and wrap them up in a vision of the world the way it is and the way it could be. Halfway through my first read, I couldn't take it any longer. I quietly returned my library copy and fled to the bookstore to buy one of my own. I had to own this book and I wasn't even finished yet! Truthfully, ANIMAL DREAMS took me completely by surprise. It had me by the throat with its motherless sisters who want to save the world, its handmade peacock pinatas, its dying town, and its gorgeous, gorgeous longing. The story of a girl searching to belong, of a town struggling to survive, and the intricate myths and culture surrounding them all completely engulfed me. To say nothing of the quiet, intense love story winding its way through the beautiful prose. There were so many other passages I wanted to quote for you but in the end I couldn't take away that opportunity of discovering them for yourself. It's just too special to intrude on in that way. When I think of those few perfect books, this one always comes to mind. I'm so glad Zanna sang its praises so emphatically. I'm so glad I listened. Because it's one of the books of my life now, too. I like having it nearby at all times. I have a lending copy...just in case. And I have trouble remembering a time I didn't know and love Codi, Loyd, and all of Grace.

This is a romance story 2010-02-24

Reviewer: David Brockert

This is a romance story. It seems to have more to it, with her sister going off to Nicaragua, her Dad in the early stages of dementia, getting to know Indian culture, but at its heart it is a romance. It is interesting to read about this other stuff.
Codi has come home to help her Dad and earn a little money by teaching high school biology. She finds she does not recognize anything she grew up with and a lot of the people. This is the story of her coming to terms with her past. The town of Grace, Arizona is just struggling to stay in existence: the mine closed and the menfolk have taken any job they can find or they move to someplace with work. There is a lot of history in the town, only a hundred (100) years or so, but it is an important part of the people. Part of what Codi finds in her past is a family history she never knew, but connects her with the town.
A large part of her past are her high school years. Teaching in her old high school brings it all back in force. Sometimes she has to deal with kids of folks she went to school with. She seems to remember only the bad times, the meanness, that she had to endure there. Of course, this is all pretty redundant for most of us. Who enjoyed or has good memories of high school? For most American children, high school was traumatic. All the emotions and everyone needing to grow up is bound to make the high school life somewhat bad for everyone at some point.
The mine closing is something I am happy I missed. It was bad enough when the miners struck. My Dad had just bought a service station in town, now no one had any money to spend on gas or service, so he eventually just gave it up and went back to his old job. Today the place that was a gas station is an accounting business or something like that.